Joel Embiid is terrific. But there’s still a level he needs to reach for the Sixers to be great.

Wake up Tuesday morning, glance at the box score from the 76ers’ 132-123 double-overtime road loss to the Houston Rockets on Monday night, and you could be forgiven for thinking that Joel Embiid was blameless for the Sixers’ failure to beat a team they ought to beat.

He scored 39 points, making 12 of his 21 shots from the field and 14 of his 17 free throws. He blocked two shots. The Sixers outscored the Rockets by eight points while he was on the floor. James Harden missed 15 of his 19 shots and gummed up the Sixers’ offense until it was as slow as cold maple syrup. The Rockets had a 51-39 rebounding edge. How was this loss in any way Embiid’s fault?

In this way: The Sixers entered the final 92 seconds of the first overtime ahead by one point, and, in that span, Embiid turned the ball over twice — on eerily identical passes in which he jumped, got caught in the air, and threw the ball out of bounds — and then fouled out. In such situations, Embiid can take and miss a decent shot. He can make a sound, smart pass to a teammate. What he can’t do in those important moments, and what he should be past doing, is repeat the elementary mistakes he made Monday night.

“Some losses, you can roll with,” Sixers analyst Alaa Abdelnaby said during NBC Sports Philadelphia’s telecast of the game. “This is not a good loss. There are no good losses, but this is an especially bad one.”

» READ MORE: Not just Brett Brown’s son, Sam Brown wins big at Lower Merion

Abdelnaby wasn’t singling out Embiid in those comments, but those turnovers and their ramifications were fresh in the mind of anyone who was watching. Given all the factors that have contributed to the Sixers’ disappointing 12-12 start, pointing to Embiid as a negative in any regard has the feel of extreme nitpicking, especially based on certain statistics: He is scoring more points per game (31.9) and shooting a better percentage from the field (.514) than in any of his previous six seasons.

Genuine issues have cropped up, though, some familiar, some new. Embiid has missed a third of the Sixers’ games because of injury. He is averaging a career-high 4.1 turnovers per game. And a team expected, at a minimum, to challenge for the Eastern Conference championship has been mediocre on the whole and, with Embiid and Harden in the lineup, worse than that. The Sixers are 2-5 when those two play together.

Understand: Embiid is a remarkable player for many reasons, and he is the Sixers’ indispensable player. They will go nowhere without him. But it remains fair to ask how far they can go with him unless and until he tightens up the looseness in his game. It’s easy to say Daryl Morey should have provided a better supporting cast around Embiid or Doc Rivers should coach up that cast, and there’s plenty of truth in saying that. Harden isn’t the reliably great isolation scorer he once was, and he should adjust accordingly. The Sixers miss Tyrese Maxey. Their roster remains top-heavy, their bench inconsistent at best, the backup center spot an obvious weakness. But even with those shortcomings, they ought to be better than .500 merely for Embiid’s presence. This sense lingers that there is more that he has to give, that he can give, and that he hasn’t yet given.

If that standard seems unfair, too high to reach, too bad. The comparing and ranking of superstars in any sport always comes down to the tyranny of small differences. If Embiid is a notch or two below LeBron James in his prime or Steph Curry and Giannis Antetokounmpo in the present, it’s because those players have demonstrated how far they were willing to go — in their work habits, in their improvement, in fostering a culture of unselfishness and excellence — to push themselves and their teams toward greatness. It’s in that willingness where championships are won and lost. It’s a level Embiid hasn’t quite reached yet.

» READ MORE: Joel Embiid’s 59-point game against the Jazz showed his greatness and the Sixers’ familiar shortcomings

There’s a scene in the film The Untouchables in which Kevin Costner, playing Eliot Ness, seeks the counsel of a wise and seasoned Chicago cop named Jimmy Malone, played by Sean Connery. Ness believes he has done all he can to bring the gangster Al Capone to justice. Malone fiddles with a string of rosary beads. “Do you really want to get him?” he asks. “What are you prepared to do?” Ness insists he will use any and all legal means at his disposal. Malone looks him in the eye.

“And then what are you prepared to do?” Malone says.

Joel Embiid has to answer that question.